


Grief

by PurpleSnowball



Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Angst, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Misery, Post Reichenbach, Suicide
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-05-14
Updated: 2012-05-14
Packaged: 2017-11-05 09:30:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 957
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/404890
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PurpleSnowball/pseuds/PurpleSnowball
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A post-Reichenbach one-shot.  John grieves.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Grief

**Author's Note:**

> My first ever fanfic, the first thing I have written for years. I feel like I should apologize for the angst in advance. Comments (helpful tips/suggestions/whatever!) much appreciated.

**Grief**

 

He sits, feet twisted on each other. Hands clenched, brow furrowed.  You were there, once.  Opposite him, crouched, your feet in your chair, improbably tall, squashed in a small space.  All dark/light and sharp edges.  Your fingers steepled under your nose.  Pale.  Beautiful.   He can still smell you faintly in the air.  Your absence is killing him.

He doesn't move.  He is silent.  He might have been there for hours, or days, or weeks.  It makes no difference.  He stays.  Still and silent.  Mrs Hudson brings him tea, which cools, untouched, beside him.

He does not cry.  He thinks.  

He realises how it must have been inside your head.  All the time.  Your obsessive mind.  Your brilliant, single-minded, unrelenting, unforgiving mind, cycling from euphoria to despair, as events unfolded.  He should have seen what was coming.  He should have _observed_.  He thinks about your highs, your lows and everything in between.  He thinks about the darkness that must have forced you to the rooftop.  That's what he feels like now.  Finally, he gets it.  He might not be a genius, but he gets you.  It's too late, but he does understand now. He wonders if this understanding might have made a difference, to both of you, if it had come sooner. 

He can't get that day out of his mind. 

He sees your hands outstretched.  Hears your voice from the rooftop, commanding him.  "Keep your eyes fixed on me.  Please, will you do this for me?"  He hears the crack in your voice.  But he stays, of course he does.  He'd do anything for you, anything to bring you back from that edge.

He hears you say goodbye.  Reaches for you.  Screams your name.  Watches you fall.  Runs towards you. Stumbles.  By the time he reaches you, there is a crowd.  And it is too late.  He holds your hand.  Watches your blood smear on the pavement.  His legs give way.

Part of him dies with you.  A bit more dies every time the stairs creak, with the expectation of your footsteps; when he forgets on waking, only for the awareness to hit him and leave him gasping with fresh agony.  

He can't imagine how the world can go on without you in it.

He always thought grief was passive.  Something that had to be tolerated, until it became bearable.  It's not. It has teeth.  It gnaws.  It burns.  He can't imagine this feeling fading.  He can't imagine wanting it to.  It would feel like a betrayal.

He can't sleep.  He can't eat.  He can't concentrate.  He can't think.  Is this what you felt?  Before you stood on the edge and didn't make it back.  It would have driven you mad, to have your mental processes crippled in this way, to have your brilliant thoughts running on a destructive feedback loop.  An unproductive, pointless stream of consciousness, cycling ever downwards.  Maybe you thought the end would set you free.  Maybe you thought life without your reputation was not worth living.

He still can't understand why you lied to him from the rooftop.  He thinks it should matter more, but he knows you were for real; like he knows the name of the prime minister, or the fact of heliocentrism.  He can imagine that you thought you were giving him a final act of kindness, absolving him of guilt-by-association.  You knew what was coming, of course you did.  You knew what you were planning to do.  He wishes he could hate you for it, for leaving him behind. He can't hate you.

He does not read the papers, watch the news or browse the Internet.  The curtains are drawn, so he does not know if the press are still there, camped on the doorstep, angling for a quote, a photo, a story.  Mrs Hudson might have mentioned it, when she brings tea, but he can't quite hold onto the memory of anything she might have said.  He hates that you have become public property, that you have been fictionalised into print, pixels, and gossip.  His anger becomes tangible when he thinks of how you were betrayed.  His breath hitches in his chest.  Not tears.  Rage, at what you did, and what they made you do.

He remembers the first night at Angelo's, the circus, the kidnappings, the woman and the hound.  He remembers playing Cluedo (only once), reading the papers while you experimented, the cups of tea and takeaways.  What would he give to get those moments back?

He replays the day.  How things might have been different, if he had not left you alone.  He wonders if you would have gone to the roof anyway, if he'd been there.  He thinks about what he would have done, what he might have said, to stop you going.  He'll never know if it would have made a difference if the words had come, if he had said the things that might have changed what you were to each other. He'll never know if your lips were as soft as they looked, or how it feels to kiss a man.

It's a dark corridor, lined with "maybes", "might-have-beens" and "what-ifs", one that he can't explore.  He has lost his light.  He has lost his way.   He knows that this place, in his head, is toxic, beyond hope.  You are gone.  He cannot change that.  Praying for a miracle will not change that.  Re-writing what you were to him, and what he was to you, will not change the fact that the chance is gone, now.  He will never get it back.

He still has his gun, tucked away somewhere you wouldn't find it.  He doesn't answer his phone or update the blog anymore.  Nothing ever happens to him. 


End file.
